Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said yesterday that New York City patrol officers are often inadequately supervised because their sergeants, the first line of defense against police corruption, are overwhelmed by paperwork and scattered too thinly.
Mr. Bratton said in an interview that his view was based on his own observations and on a study prepared for him by a management consultant. The Commissioner assigned the consultant to review the management structure of the department and the attitudes of police officers and brass. Prepared as the current scandal surrounding corruption in a Harlem police precinct was about to unfold, the study concluded that the department's effectiveness was badly hampered by the attitudes of its members and that the internal investigative apparatus was stretched beyond its ability.
The report, based largely on interviews with members of the force, also found that precinct commanders say they feel hamstrung in efforts to make critical decisions, and that sergeants complain that many young officers have been poorly trained and perhaps should never have been hired.
Mr. Bratton endorsed the findings of the report in an interview yesterday, saying: "We're looking at the organization and trying to find ways to energize it and move it in a new direction. This is an organization that needs a strong sense of mission."
The report draws a picture of a police department with deep structural problems.
"Virtually all institutional systems are organized to protect the department rather than to make it effective," concluded the report, titled "Changing the Culture of the NYPD: Preliminary Issues for the Plan of Action." It was written by John Linder, a private adviser to Mr. Bratton.
Mr. Linder's report also concluded, "The highest levels of the organization have been primarily concerned with avoiding criticism from the media, politicians, and citizen groups rather than with achieving tangible progress against violent crime, disorder and fear."
The conclusions of the report are a synthesis and endorsement of opinions of 150 officers and precinct commanders collected in 15 focus groups conducted in January and February. It said that all the groups, from patrol officers to precinct commanders, agreed that they "have been hamstrung by FEAR for more than a generation."
Mr. Bratton, who sat in on some of the focus groups, said the conclusions expressed by the officers matched his own observations. In an interview yesterday, he said, "There's a significant shortage of sergeants, which was one of the problems in the 30," he said referring the scandal at the 30th precinct in northwest Harlem. "We create so much paperwork for the sergeants, it creates difficulties for keeping them in the streets."
He said the study "sets the stage" for "the plan of action," the statement of his strategic vision that he is preparing with a small group of aides including Mr. Linder. The plan is expected to be completed next month.
Used in Bratton's Message
Mr. Linder said that Mr. Bratton had already used the conclusions of his memo to tailor his message in his tours of precincts and videotaped messages shown every week in all 75 city precinct station houses. The videotapes are a combination of pep talks and serious discussions of new strategies, particularly the Commissioner's new emphasis on investigating the smuggling and distribution of illegal guns and encouraging patrol officers to arrest street-level drug dealers.
Of all the problems cited in the memorandum, few if any are more severe than the shortage of sergeants, law-enforcement experts say. As in the Army, the police sergeants are the officers with the most intimate relationship with the officers in the field. Not only do they interpret the orders that come from higher commanders, they also monitor and report on the activities of the patrol officers.
"There is a critical shortage of sergeants, " said the Linder memorandum, which reported that sergeants he interviewed said: "Patrol supervisors are beleaguered. They are unable to supervise, and unable to do their paperwork during tours."
A Dropping Ratio
There are currently 3,234 sergeants on the 31,000-person force, an increase of 190 since Jan. 1. The current ratio of sergeants to patrol officers is about 1 to 8, which is considered optimal. But because a large number of sergeants are detailed to specialized units, like those that deal with narcotics, the ratios fall to 1 to 20 or lower on some shifts in some precincts.
Milton Mollen, the former Deputy Mayor who heads a commission examining police corruption, said, "I would have to conclude that the shortage of sergeants contributed to the problem of corruption." From commission investigations, he said, he has heard that the ratio of sergeants to patrol officers has sometimes reached 1 to 30 on some shifts.
In hearings conducted by the Mollen Commission last year, witnesses pinpointed pockets of corruption in a handful of precincts in the city's poor and minority neighborhoods that are infested with drugs. Other law enforcement officials have estimated that scandals could engulf up to 10 precincts.
Fourteen officers have been charged in the 30th Precinct in Harlem on various drug charges in the last week, and Mr. Bratton said about 35 more will arrested or otherwise disciplined.
Several outside experts agreed with the findings of the memorandum.
"The memo is addressing the right questions," said Dennis C. Smith, a professor of public policy at New York University's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. But the conclusion that the department's "systems are organized to protect the department rather than to make it effective," Mr. Smith said, "sounds like an exaggeration."
Thomas A. Reppetto, president of the Citizens Crime Commission, a nonprofit policy group, said many of the observations in the memorandum were true, but "a similar critique could be made about several other police departments, and other American bureaucracies, where the primary rule is to cover their posteriors."
The memorandum underscores the growing importance of Mr. Linder as a figure in the Police Department, although he is technically on a temporary contract as an independent consultant paid by the Police Foundation. Mr. Linder served a similar consulting function for Mr. Bratton when he headed the Transit Police two years ago, developing strategy plans and a public relations campaign to calm public fears about the subways.
Mr. Linder, who was marketing director of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and speechwriter for several senior politicians in Ohio and Montana, is not a law-enforcement expert by training. But Mr. Bratton has said Mr. Linder has a special talent for putting his ideas on paper, and for organizing communications strategies to persuade bureaucracies and the public at large.
The memorandum reflects how Mr. Bratton trying to use modern management tools like focus groups and videotapes to make the Police Department perform more like a modern corporation and change the culture of the institution to create a more successful attitude on all levels of the hierarchy.
"The fear that is in this organization - as the commissioner says - is the key cultural trait that is holding back the organization," Mr. Linder said in an interview yesterday.
Internal Problems
Among the most disturbing complaints voiced by officers was one by captains in the Internal Affairs Bureau, the investigative branch of the police force that Mr. Bratton is attempting to strengthen with better technology, sting operations and other resources.
"Their current caseload prevents them from doing many integrity tests and other proactive work," the report said. "While they believe they do not have enough authority to determine disposition of cases (all cases must be passed through many layers above them), they are committed to their function."
Particularly stinging was what sergeants had to say about the performance of younger officers. "The newer cops suffer from poor selection and training," the memorandum reported. "Some are afraid to take action. Many are controlled by their social calendar rather than the demands of the job."
